Missed Opportunities
by Iris Degloom
Summary: The burden will always last for her but so will her friendships... being a mother of an unwanted child, not really on her priority list but look on the bright side... well, there wasn't any considering she was raped...


_**Prologue**_

_**Author's**_** Note:**** Ok, now you're all wondering (ok, maybe not all) why I'm not updating Ruby's diary. I would if I could but for some reason, getting her diary is... well, getting harder. Like I accidentally made an alarm system go off and it woke everyone but Ruby up... hey, why was there an alarm system? The good news is, I made friends with my future self (hot and single, call me... or her... preferably me) who told me everything that has happened and that she wanted to write it out but was quite busy so she hoped I could do it. **

**WELL OF COURSE I CAN DO IT!**

* * *

Skull Boy had a healthy experience of the ever-changing seasons of friendships. He remembered when spring was blooming in Gloomsville for him. Skull Boy was initially wary of conversation those days. It was a cunning creature and confronting. He knew it would be suicidal for a shy skeleton like him. What with exchanging ideas, considering others' opinions, shifting positions; he risked changing himself, admitting he was wrong or coming to acknowledge the other person's perspective.

However, the moment he had his first real conversation, he actually found himself enjoying it. Maybe it was because he was having it with a fantastic, bubbly girl with fiery hair, or he liked the topic they were discussing. Two people at the same moment of life, were brought together by luck and circumstance, fitting together perfectly but finitely.

Soon, he met another. An adventurous cyclops girl, the best friend of the happiest girl in the world.

And another. Conjoined brothers who loved to rock.

The group continued to grow until there were ten unique members.

Then, the weather changed. Trees once full of starlight became totally bare and everywhere the streets were full of strangers. Though he loved greeting everybody he saw, he dearly missed his friends. A wintry frost suddenly descended on his red shoes stained with sticky jam, making Skulls realize how much time has passed. Facebook posts, like fluttery snowflakes, drifted down, sylph-like in their airy silence. He always had video chats with them exactly on Fridays, 2:30 pm. At Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf. With his favorite red laptop and iced peach tea.

He knew that some friendships evolved, some of them faded away, and some became fossilized marvels, suspended in perfection, frozen in memory. Truthfully, he did not know the real outcome of his friendships. Yet, the skeleton understood that all of them could be sparked and reignited just by simplest of things.

Like the day he accidentally called RIP.

* * *

Not a single minute of privacy, even when they were buying hair gel. The rocker brothers had been strolling down Grunts Avenue. Frank was suitably concealed behind his pair of darkened glasses and a neat cowboy's hat worn on top of his head while Len... was the Easter Bunny. With the bunny ears and make-up, you would be probably asking him for eggs. These disguises (even Len's strangely) had prevented their crazed fans and those equally crazed paparazzi from hounding them incessantly. A day with fans and camera bulbs popping in their faces just wasn't their idea of fun. After all, they were just rock stars recently shot to fame with a record of millions of amazing albums sold out in shops across the globe in less than an hour. Their feat was unprecedented by all records set by precious megastars who had gradually lost their luster, years later. Busily squabbling with each other about which hair product they should get, they failed to notice deliberate and disconcerting stares in their direction until…

"OMG! ARE YOU RIP?!"

Hasty denials hung like flimsy cobwebs on each word while they jostled their way to the shop's exit,

"Er... no... who's RIP? Are they handsome brothers or something?" Len gulped.

"Great, I told you that your silly rabbit disguise would expose us." Frank hissed as their hastened their pace.

"I KNEW IT WAS THEM! I COULD TELL FROM HOW HOT ONE OF THEM LOOKED IN THAT COWBOY SUIT!"

A glare was directed at Frank, who had the decency to give a sheepish smile before screaming...

"Run!"

They did. Run right into a crowd of screaming fans who had found their way to where they were. Those paparazzi and fans had picked up their scent easily like bloodhounds. As Frank vowed to stop eating garlic bread, they made a frantic leap down the kern, ricocheting across the road before scuttling into their car, desperate to make a swift getaway as soon as they could. The revving of engines behind them confirmed that those paparazzi, desperate for any scrap of news about the latest sensation, were already hot on their heels. In their race against time, it was a miracle that they managed to answer their phone as Len clicked on the incoming call,

"Hey, how's it goin' whoever this is? Who are you?"

"Well, I kinda don't know who I am, I mean, I know I used to have a family but I just don't know who they are. However, I think that I may be related to…" A crisp voice responded with a confused tone.

"SKULLS! YOU HAVE GOTTA SAVE US! WE ARE IN YOUR AREA, DREADSVILLE! NEAR THE HUGE RED FLAG!"

"… fake managers going to have to rescue RIP with Kung-fu at the Battle of Dust Bunnies. Got it."

Then, he ended the call and just as it seemed all was doomed for Frank and Len, he came, adorned in a custom-tailored tuxedo with pinstripes. He carried an umbrella in one hand, a long cigarette in the other (really just a jumble of straws), and a top hat which added to his already considerable height. With his umbrella, he punctured all the tyres of the journalists' cars just by throwing it. Frightened at the spectacle, they scrambled out of their vehicles only to gulp audibly at the sight of the skeleton,

"I'm Donald Nobert Rufus Edwardo! RIP's current manager and sorry y'all but I, oh yeah ME, have great body guards. Namely my hands..."

* * *

Eventually, they found themselves resting their weary muscles (or bones in Skull Boy's case) in Frank and Len's recording room, a cavernous space with soundproof walls that hid them from the rest of the world. Chairs and music stands were arranged around several microphones. A grand piano stood to one side while a glass cage surrounded a fantastic drum kit, with Scaredy resting on a cymbal. However, the moment he heard the jingling of Frank's keys, the tiny strands of hair on his neck began to stand at attention. Barely suppressing a whimper, he ducked beneath the cymbal, trembling so violently that the cymbals started to ring incessantly until he heard Len crying,

"Is there any privacy in the world?!"

"Yeah! We really needed some hair gel! That was it! Hair gel!" Frank mewled.

"Oh, thank goodness, I thought it was a monster. Luckily, it is only you two and... and... SKULL BOY!"

Clapping his wings, he threw aside the cymbal, charged at the skeleton, landed on the top of Skull's head, hugging Skull Boy very tightly and covering his eyes. Shocked by the sudden darkness, the skeleton tripped over some wires, knocking down a microphone before he landed on the floor, his bones scattered everywhere.

"Ya, I missed you too Scaredy. It's nice to see you all." Skulls chuckled, not even bothering to pry the bat off. After many tackles, he knew it would be futile… and he truly did miss the little bat.

"No offense or anything Skulls, we seriously missed you but how come you were calling us? It's not 2:30 pm yet." Frank asked as he and Len rummaged through the refrigerator, hoping to find at least a can of soda for Skulls.

"Oh, I was calling my professor frankly..."

"OH MY GOD! FRANK! THERE'S ANOTHER FRANK! ONLY, HE'S CALLED 'FRANKLY'!" Len gasped.

"Len, why would a person be called…" Frank sighed and was about to explain everything to his denser brother but Skull Boy interrupted,

"Actually, his full name is 'Frankly Einstein'."

"Seriously? There's another me in Harfraid?" Frank gasped.

Skulls chuckled so hard that he didn't notice that he was leaning back onto the huge array of switches until they heard a recording of Misery.

However, Misery's flat alto voice seemed to be gone, replaced with Alvin the Chipmunk's squeakiness, as his fingers accidentally flocked the switches and affected her stories about her ancestors' misfortune. Guffawing, Len pressed a red button and Iris, during her fake Nobel Prize speech, was given a low contralto. Then, after laughing their heads off, they played Ruby's voice, and while the radio crackled and the recording was blasted in short, intermittent periods, Skull Boy could hear her chanting her mantra perfectly,

"Look... on... the... bright... side!"

From a chuckling skeleton, his eyes suddenly became wistful. While Len wasn't really the brightest person in the world, he noticed the change in Skull Boy's behavior and the squeaky cogs in his brain churned until,

"Hey! I think we're gonna be going to Gloomsville for our next tour! Let me check my notes."

Len glared at his brother as Frank yanked the notebook he had been reading right out of his hand. Len even made cute, little grabby motions but Frank swiftly hid it behind his back, all the while skimming through the rather colorful pages,

"Woah, bro. I never you could draw squirrels so well."

"Godspeed furry rodent. NOW GIVE IT BACK!"

"Truly, we can all go back home?"

Scaredy's beady eyes began to shine and they were not clouded with fear anymore at the mention of 'Gloomsville'.

"Yeah, and I bet you can learn more about Bollywood films. I remember that Aamir Cull is gonna see us there." Frank nodded.

"Bollywood? Oh yeah, I've also heard that you're taking part in the annual Bollywood film making competition Scaredy! Congrats." Skulls offered his bony hand to Scaredy and didn't even notice that Scaredy was now shaking his detached arm.

"Yes, but there is so much to learn about Bollywood."

"Just ride the rollercoaster and everything will play out eventually." Frank advised.

Scaredy shuddered,

"Oh dear me, I fear roller-coasters! All the twisting and turning and falling and puking…!"

"Ok, then it can be a bumper-car." Frank suggested.

"Ugh, no! It is like you're being thrown around in a tornado with all those bumps!" He shook his head.

"A ferris wheel?" Len added. Those were far less dangerous and they didn't move all that fast.

Scaredy's eyes widened and he whimpered slightly,

"No… no ferris wheels. They go up too high and when you are at the top, it feels like everyone at the bottom is looking at you."

The brothers rolled their eyes before chiming,

"Ok, you pick!"

"While we pack!" Skull Boy added, quickly throwing in his essentials into a huge haversack that was twice as large as him. The brothers followed suit as they created a huge pile of different musical instruments and recording equipment. The only things that looked useful were the two toothbrushes teetering at the top but Scaredy and Skull Boy were too excited to comment.

"WE'RE GOING HOME!" They chimed together.


End file.
